3d Card Early Access

Introducing 3d & MH Link



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What it is…

The 3d Card Upgrade is a user-installable hardware and software combination that completely refreshes your Metric Halo devices for the next leg of the digital revolution. It replaces all the digital & computer interfacing on your hardware with up-to-date, cutting-edge implementations.

The 3d Card Upgrade includes:

This release is Early Access. What does that mean?

MH Link - Small Plug, Huge Pipe

Introducing MH Link — our ultra-low latency Gigabit Ethernet based box-healing backplane

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MH Link redefines audio interconnect technology. It supports up to 128 channels at 32-bit/192k, bidirectionally, on each port. MH Link intelligently manages low-jitter audio clock distribution, high-bandwidth audio streaming and system control data all on a single lightweight, inexpensive, industry-standard Cat5/5e Ethernet cable. MH Link helps you to maximize your audio performance while minimizing complexity.

MH Link key features:

MH EdgeBus

The Portal to Your Future

Upgrading to 3d means that you are prepared for whatever future interfaces you may need. The MH EdgeBus port integrated with every 3d Card accepts Metric Halo’s exclusive high-speed expansion EdgeCards.

In addition to the connectivity already included with the 3d Card, the following EdgeCard variants are now available with the 3d release, with more planned for the future:


SPDIF_AES
MH EdgeCard: SPDIF • AES
ADAT x4
MH EdgeCard: ADAT x4
SPDIF • ADAT x2
MH EdgeCard: SPDIF • ADAT x2
SPDIF x2 • ADAT x2
MH EdgeCard: SPDIF x2 • ADAT x2
MADI Optical x2
MH EdgeCard: MADI Optical x2
SPDIF • MIDI
MH EdgeCard: SPDIF • MIDI
MADI Copper x4
MH EdgeCard: MADI Copper x4
MADI Copper • Optical
MH EdgeCard: MADI Copper • Optical
Eight Channel AES
MH EdgeCard: Eight Channel AES

Welcome your new Console — MH Console

Ultimate Console and Mixer Solution


MixerUI

A new engine deserves a new Console. For 3d, we designed a new retina-enabled, 64-bit, cross-platform console application: MH Console.

MH Console features a high-impact, modern, flat design with scalable UI elements. With user controllable color theming and extensive support for user-configurable interaction preferences, it is easy to tune the console to fit your style (and your eyesight). MH Console also adds support for standard UI gestures including drag-and-drop for inserts and multi-strip control swiping.

It is built to support both multi-window and single-window modes — so you can work comfortably no matter what your windowing style is — it even supports full-screen mode.

MH Console features an expanded and updated MH Mixer. Building on the power of the v.5 Mixer, MH Mixer continues to support all the v.5 features that you have come to rely on: multi-bus mixing, arbitrary routing, input and output multing, zero-latency hardware plug-ins, surround support, and headamp control. MH Mixer removes the barriers that limited the v.5 mixer by providing:

These new mixing features unlock new workflows specifically targeted at mixing for live and zero-latency cue mixing during tracking.

Join Together

More Channels. More Power. Simple Setup. Zero Latency. No Aggregate Devices Required.

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Every Metric Halo 3d Device includes Metric Halo’s custom Multicore-Audio Network-on-a-Chip technology which is a unique hybrid of custom FPGA processors and programmable floating point DSP processing.

The 3d Core combines hardware MH Link packet processors, Digital Audio I/O processors, dedicated hardware for Mixing, Routing, and Metering along with programmable DSP to form a flexible, programmable Audio Network System.

MH Console uses the 3d Core in each unit and the network of MH Link connections to automatically aggregate all the resources of your Metric Halo 3d hardware units into one unified device. Unlike many competitive products, 3d does not require a central unit in order to aggregate. This means that you can scale your system one box at a time without having to make a big investment up front.

3d is designed to balance DSP power with I/O capabilities. As you add more Metric Halo I/O, your DSP power increases proportionally. With 3d you can simply connect a second unit to double the performance and each additional MH Linked unit increases the overall processing power of the system.

With 3d, all I/Os, mix busses, DSPs and processing engines are first-class citizens. Unlike other products where low-latency routing can only be done within a given unit, MH Link supports routing from any resource on any box to any resource on any other box with only 3 samples total latency.

Adding more boxes to your system adds more I/O channels to the mixer (both input and output). Need another headphone output? Add a box. Need more mic inputs? Add a box. All inputs are available to all busses and all busses can be sent to any and all of physically connected boxes and their the outputs across the system.

MH Console gives you the freedom to route anything anywhere, while greatly simplifying the process of configuring the system to meet your needs. It provides:

MH MonitorControl — Monitoring is Key

Hear the Transparent Sound of Metric Halo D/A Conversion

MC

You have to be able to hear your audio properly to make good decisions. For 3d we built in MH MonitorControl: an integrated, system-wide, surround-capable monitor controller.

MH MonitorControl allows the exceptional Metric Halo D/A converters to shine without the need for any additional hardware.

MH MonitorControl on ULN-8/LIO-8 features analog domain gain control for pristine level management at full converter resolution.

In addition to all the expected features of a monitor control solution (including source and destination selection, gain control, mute, dim, speaker mute/solo and mono fold-down), MH MonitorControl provides extensive support for:

MH Record – Get on track

Record with Unparalleled Stability, Simplicity, Sound-Quality and Track Count…

Originally developed to record Soulive’s 2003 Blue Note live album “Soulive (Live)” the Record Panel was designed to capture the inputs of multiple 2882s direct to disk.

MIOConsole’s integrated Record Panel implemented a simple capture tool: rock-solid and light-weight with direct access to the hardware.

Over the years, the Record Panel added advanced features including SMPTE LTC decoding, audio file time stamping, BWF support and file auto-breaking for long-form live recording.

MH Console expands on the design of the Record Panel and integrates MH Record - a take-based recording engine with deep integration with the 3d hardware. MH Record maintains the legendary stability and reliability that the Record Panel is known for while adding a host of new features. MH Record

MH Record provides:

For live recording and take-based tracking, MH Record offers unparalleled stability, simplicity and sound-quality.

MH DSP Engine

Scalable Processing Power & Massive Memory

Full +DSP License Included with Each 3d Card

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In 2001, Metric Halo blazed a trail for the industry by introducing the first interface with support for instantiable DSP.

17 years later we took +DSP to the next level. 3d core technology is based upon a fused FPGA/multi-processor design. To take advantage of this we offloaded as much of the core audio processing functions from the DSPs to the FPGA as we could.

And the results are stunning.

Within the FPGA we implemented a complementary set of custom designed audio-optimized processors that all interface to each other with virtually no latency. The Metric Halo custom designed processors in each 3d Card include:

The processing power of the FPGA-based custom processors in 3d amount to roughly 30x the processing power of the DSP on the 2d Card. All the processors in the FPGA run with 1 sample of latency. All processors in the FPGA support their full capability at 192kHz. All of the audio transport in the system (with the exception of DSP processing) is managed completely in hardware.

The 3d Core DMA engine connects to the fully programmable floating point DSP cores, which continue to support instantiable plug-in processing, with the added benefit of massively increasing the amount of low-latency memory available to the plug-ins. Each 3d Card has 1 GB of memory available for DSP processing - more than 2500x the memory that was available on 2d. This means that running out of memory for delays or reverbs is a thing of the past.

We have included the full +DSP suite with the purchase of 3d. You can now access all the +DSP plug-ins as well as the +DSP graph on all units without an additional license.

Take Control

Control Surface Support for Mackie Control and Eucon

MH Console supports the industry-standard Mackie Control protocol as well as Avid’s EuCon control surface protocol. If you want tactile control over MH Console, all you have to do is add one of the many supported control surfaces.

ControSurface

Faders, pans, mute, solo, headamp controls and MH Record transport controls are at your finger tips, and MH Console is ultra-responsive - no lag between the surface and the DSP.

You can navigate through your mix from your surface. Moving an Aux to the faders is a single button push, and if your surface has a master fader, the selected bus master is always on the master fader.

The Future (proof)

3d is just the start of the next chapter in MH’s audio technologies. We have built future-proof extensibility into the hardware at its base level.

Buy 3d for the problems it solves for you today. With Metric Halo’s 17 year proven commitment to future proof hardware, you can be confident that it will continue to help you solve new problems tomorrow.

Join us — take advantage of our Early Access offer.
Choose your 3d Upgrades today!




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